THE GOOD NEWS at the 1970 annual Screen Actors Guild meeting at the storied Hollywood Palladium was that SAG president Charlton Heston was about to present the organization's eighth annual Life Achievement Award to Gregory Peck.
I was there in the auditorium that Friday, Nov. 20th, with what seemed like every recognizable face in Hollywood, green as grass, a newly minted SAG member and at that point a five-month resident of Hollywood, my bachelor apartment a stone's throw away. I sat as close to the stage as I could, in the lefthand section, right on the aisle _ a spot that almost turned out to be as much curse as blessing (years later, Screen Actor Magazine marked an anniversary of the event with a huge, double-page photo _ and there I was, as wide-eyed as Bambi, but twice as gullible).
First, a little history about the Palladium.
The legendary Art Deco building at 6215 Sunset Boulevard opened in October 1940, thanks to the $1.6 million largesse of Los Angeles Times publisher Norman Chandler.
To say that the list of performers who appeared there over the years is varied and eclectic is an understatement in the extreme.
The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra featuring a boy singer named Frank Sinatra gave the inaugural performance there, and in the ensuing years, the Palladium would be home to everything from "The Lawrence Welk Show" to "Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip," with films such as "The Blues Brothers" and "Day of the Locust" sprinkled liberally throughout.
The afternoon of this momentous annual SAG gathering began cheerily enough, with SAG President Heston presenting a delighted Peck with the achievement award (I had seen them convincingly knock heads as adversaries in the great western "The Big Country" a decade earlier and was amazed at how well they seemed to get along).
Then all hell broke loose.
Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, fresh off filming "Klute," which would bring Fonda her first Oscar, were at the height of their anti-everything cycle, and on this day they were attacking SAG for not being diversified enough. That came as an immense surprise to me, since the organization's board members, seated onstage, seemed pretty darned diverse to me, featuring everyone from Native American Jay Silverheels, Tonto himself, to actresses like Kathleen Freeman and Kathleen Nolan of "Real McCoys" fame, the latter slated to become the first woman president of the body a few years later.
Ms. Fonda and Sutherland seemed to want to talk, and so they they did, via microphones that had been set up in the aisles so that members could question Heston and the board.
There were plenty of pressing issues. A whopping 42% of the SAG membership was unemployed, and because of that the guild and IATSE (the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) had signed a lower-budget contract designed to bring production back to Hollywood (the agreement was called the "Comeback Contract").
Seated as I was right on the aisle, Ms. Fonda became my new best friend, at least geographically speaking. No matter what anyone said, she had a ready answer, and sped back to the microphone. And _ almost _ to me. (It occurred to me that I'd better have something to say if she sped too hard, missed the mike, and landed in my lap; it could be the ultimate career changer.)
Finally, the dignified and reserved character actor John Randolph, just coming off a dynamic performance as the "old" version of Rock Hudson in the film "Seconds," attempted to bring reason and decorum back to the session. Avuncular and extraordinarily well spoken, he removed his glasses repeatedly and leaned in, moving his arms and hands in way that must have taken years onstage to perfect. (Alas, this was not to be Mr. Randolph's worst experience at a gathering of actors; at the 1986 Oscar ceremonies telecast, his wife, actress Sarah Cunningham, would die of an asthma attack.)
I came away from the SAG meeting impressed, dazed and a little frightened. What had I gotten into, and was I up to it? I still don't know the answer to that one _ but here I am.
